On Being Judged

 

 

A hundred cries of delight

Echo from red brick walls

As they tussle for a football,

And the girls are skipping in time

To melodies and singing rhymes,

Watched keenly by the dinner ladies

And playground monitors;

Just how will life blossom,

What scenes will introduce

Their hearts to the world outside?

 

     They’re watching pepper pig,

Humph, dora the explorer

While their parents argue over stress,

And they’re mindful of the blackened

Eyes and bruises but,

Their parents are the best.

          Their slow introduction,

Their indoctrination conjures

Frowns of unbelieving,

And as they grow they tempt

The first kiss, the first fist!

And it’s only a while,

A short short place in history

Yet,

     Troubles are always up ahead.

 

They grow, while parents shed

The tears of unbelieving now,

For born of love the world

Around proves only hate,

And battles rage from place

To place to place.

          Making love is easy town

But the skinny, the real hard core

Of life, is living in the big shitty,

The gritty smitten with violence

And blood,

           Is that by the time

They’re seventeen,

They just won’t give a fuck,

And it’s tears of unbelieving by parents

Who’ve lost their even strided

Views, as their cherubs are sent down,

And I for one, given all that

Has become, will neither label any,

Or accuse.

 

Michael J Waite 3^rd December 2011.